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Howdy!

Welcome to Full of Woe ... my online home away from home. I'm the girl behind the scenes and this is where my rambling side comes out in multiple ways. This particular blog has been around on more than one domain (and blog name) since 2005, although I've been blogging somewhere in the internetwebosphere since February 2001.

To make a long story short, in case you're lazy at times like I am, I'm a 31 year old lass who's a proud Texan. I work in the public sector during the week and for myself as a photographer when I'm not at the day job (the images in the header above are some of my travel/landscape work). I dabble in a variety of interests, including an obsession for furthering my education and vintage camera collecting.

FYI: Full of Woe originated out of the fact I was born on a Wednesday ... and as the saying goes: "Wednesday's child is full of woe."

You can view my photographic work by clicking the link on the menu above -- I tend to blog there more than I do here these days!

2012 Year Long Goals

Saturday, January 14, 2012 financial|goals|health|photography|travel

As I posted yesterday, I have a few year long goals I want to achieve … all but one are carryovers from 2011!

1) Pay off debt & bank as much extra money as possible!

As the Great Dental Woes of 2011 have become the Bankrupting Dental Woes of the Two Thousands (or so its starting to seem as I guesstimated I’ve probably spent $10k out of pocket since having my own dental insurance policy in 2002!), I’m realistic in the fact I’m gonna probably end 2012 with a pitiful future house fund and a dentist that’ll be able to better clothe/feed his children at that expense. I do have every.single.intention. of being out of debt on the cc balance I have now (for spring 2012 tuition and a few dumb purchases in 2011) that’s locked in on a 0% BT through November 2012. I don’t plan to carry a balance on the other two cards that I use for daily purchases and gasoline and pay off at the end of each month (one nets me a decent cashback bonus of approx $100/year for using it & the other one nets me about $150/year towards paying off my student loan balance). My student loans will be paid in full by year’s end (they’re just over $2600 as of today). My car will be paid off by summer’s end; however, its falling apart slowly, out of warranty completely, and just surpassed 100k last month, so I plan to trade it in on something else that I hope won’t be falling apart before its paid off! … that’ll be sometime between September and December 2012. I am contemplating two weekend trips this year + possibly one longer trip in late spring that I need to save some money for … at least one of those I’ll have travel companions to split costs with, the other two I don’t know yet. Meanwhile I want to beef up my emergency savings, try to build back up my medical savings once I get past what has to be done this winter (its about 1/3 done now), and bank some biz income towards buying a 70-200mm lens for biz & personal usage. And maybe, just maybe, if the biz has a banner year beyond my expectations AND Canon finally releases a quirk free successor to the 5D Mark II, I’ll be able to afford to pay cash in hand for it late this year.

2) Get & stay healthier.

I’m gonna be open here but not to the point of TMI in hopes I’ll have some positive support in achieving this one this year. Family and some friends know about this, but I’m putting it out there for everyone else to help hold me accountable and be supportive (btw, if you don’t have anything positive to say, click the X in the corner now.)

I’ve been reading up on foods to help counter this pesky phenomenon known as Acid Reflux that I seem to have developed/inherited. I’d like to keep what teeth I have before it destroys them all. Having TMJ is bad enough, need to lower my stress and decrease the # of times I spend more than half an hour with my mouth being worked on so it will stop flaring up so often so I won’t have to take those pesky muscle relaxants that make me feel dingy. I’d also like to counter all these weight (30 lbs) that stress and PCOS have helped me pack on since 2007. I’ll be happy to lose 15 of it. My wardrobe budget would be glad too …

While this is a year-long goal, next month I’ll begin spelling out what small steps I’m working towards to achieve this. Right now I’m looking for the right workout regime and foods that’ll help both issues.

3) Focus on education/growth as a photographer.

Essentially, all those materials I didn’t finish last year? Gonna finish them if it kills me or means a little less sleep a couple evenings a week. Also I have two photo projects this year — a 52 week challenge (year three of shooting/blogging an image a week on my biz blog) + monthly self portraits inspired by a quote that speaks to me that month. Also going to invest in a few tools to challenge myself photographically (filters primarily).

4) Either make or buy American for part to all of every present I gift this year.

If you’ve seen the Made in America series that ABC News has broadcast about since last fall, then you know what I’m talking about … how many jobs we can help create/maintain if we buy American instead of cheap overseas crap. I bargain shop & buy gifts for people year-round as I come across things I know family and the friends I gift to will like, so usually they get twice as much as a result. This year I intend for at least one if not all of the items I gift them for birthdays/Christmas to be American made or made by me. I’d love to be able to do the same for baby and wedding shower gifts that come up during the year if possible … but I’m not going to hold myself to that one since those are usually purchased from registries!

by girl

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2011 Goals Review

Friday, January 13, 2012 goals

Well, I meant to do this a bit sooner than nearly two weeks into the new year … but life has been flying by a bit faster than I prefer!

The 2011 goals … click here to read the explanations, then come back to this post to read how I achieved or tried to achieve them!

1) Pay off debt & bank as much extra money as possible!

Let’s see, I paid off a lot of debt, but due to unexpected dental woes that set me back over $2k out of pocket (insurance paid less than I did and I nearly maxed it out by midyear), I didn’t get as far into the achieving debt freedom as I’d planned to. I did bank a considerable amount of money, just not as much as I’d planned. The emergency fund is within a $1,000 of where I wanted it, that goal will happen this year plus a bit more. I keep wiping out the medical savings account with all of the dental woes. In fact, I just wiped it out as of January 3rd because the dental woes have decided to break me again for a second year in a row! Saved up and paid for most of three long weekend trips last year, only a little bit on the cc that I paid off out of current income when the bill came. Future home was the only thing that got back burnered. I still may get there by December 2012 … or close!

2) Get & stay healthier.

If we ignore the bloody dental woes mentioned above (and the acid reflux that’s the primary cause of bankrupting me!), I had a pretty healthy year otherwise. I didn’t get back into running as I’d planned … the Texas summer we had nixed part of that when I finally had time, then changes at work left me too exhausted. I did lose five pounds between early November and the end of the year. Found a couple of them in the last week though :-/

3) Focus on education/growth as a photographer.

I attended Imaging USA in San Antonio last January (a year ago this weekend in fact), but left with mixed feelings. Learned a lot and came across some great products but in the end, my mixed feelings led to implementing some major business changes at year’s end. Still very slowly working my way through all the workbooks, workshop manuals, and dvds. CPP is on hold for now because of the aforementioned major business changes. Maybe someday. Goals and plans have changed for now.

4) Continue getting rid of stuff I don’t need or use.

As I said at the beginning of 2011, “I won’t begin to tell you how much stuff I donated or sold last year … but I still have a bunch of stuff to go through, including stuff stored in a barn and a storage building that’s been there for several years. I’m also getting rid of a lot of my business props that I no longer will use since I stopped offering certain session types … a few of the items I spent too much time locating, so I’m keeping those for when I will have a reason to use them myself, but the rest are about to be gone!”

I’ve gotten rid of a lot of that (need to sell off some stuff too) and I’m still sifting through stuff to get rid of. Maybe by the end of this year I’ll be down to what I can load into a Uhaul truck whenever I move!

5) Complete several personal photography projects.

I actually made a bit of progress in two of my personal photography projects, just have to find time to edit all the images and then share them on the interwebs.

6) Learn how to sew (properly).

I didn’t get around to making a few crafty projects I’ve had my eye on for awhile over the course of this year but I did get in there and take control of the sewing maching and got a feel for it again. It’ll be on this year’s goals for sure …

7) Read all the books that I currently have taking up space!

Good grief … I read 125 books in 2011. About 30 of those were via my Kindle app on my phone, many from the library, and many more trades at the local book exchange. I read some of these. Not all. Many are still glaring at me that they’re accumulating dustbunnies. Trying hard to ignore the kindle app and to read what’s still lurking before I trade/buy more!

Work less, enjoy life more!

I did cut back on sessions (granted, the economy also helped a tad there!), but due to some work changes I did spend a chunk of the year stressed out. Definitely gonna try to take on less ‘work’ and focus on things I enjoy this year.

2012′s goals will actually be on two levels, monthly and year-long. I’ll start sharing the monthly ones in February … and as soon as I get a few minutes, I’ll post the few year-long ones!

by girl

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Ten Years Later

Sunday, September 11, 2011 history related|remembrance

Always remember, never forget …

I created this image just after September 11, 2001 and each year I post it in memory of everyone who lost their life in the attacks on the WTC towers, the Pentagon, and in Pennsylvania, along with the rescuers that gave their lives as well.

Its hard to believe its been ten years. How far my life has evolved in that long, yet fast moving period of time — further, in fact, than I ever dreamed. Ten years ago, I was a month and a day out of my undergraduate studies, job hunting and taking classes I didn’t get to enjoy as electives due to the lack of elective hours in my bachelor’s degree. I spent the night before 9.11.01 in my World Religion class, where a classmate asked about jihad and our instructor, a pastor, encouraged discussion and helped us gain a bit of understanding as we hadn’t reached the Muslim portion of our textbook as of yet. Prior to that class, a Muslim coworker and I, after he saw me reading my textbook for that night’s class, discussed our religions, comparing and contrasting them without fear or worry.

What a difference that 24 hour period made in all of our lives.

That morning I woke up and went up to the local college, where I tutored at, met with one student, then drove across town to get gas before I went to class and then to my other job. While pumping gas, these two girls came out of the station laughing and one of them said, “yeah right, a plane flew into a building.” I went in to get a snack and a drink, and while checking out, the teary eyed clerk told me what she was seeing on the tv just around the corner from the register. I drove back to the college, stunned, flipping through stations to find out something, anything. My mom was a student at that time, so I went and waited outside her classroom door to tell her — her instructor went to his computer to try to find something out for us but couldn’t find anything more than I’d heard already. I decided to skip my class — knowing what was happening in my country right then was more important than learning about computer programming. I was about a mile from my house when (the radio station I was listening to was streaming ABC News) I heard a loud roar and Peter Jennings’ voice cracked as he said “The first tower has fallen.” I made it home to discover my dad sitting in front of the kitchen tv, tears streaming, as he watched it live. We sat together, him trying to tell me what had already happened, me trying to process it all. I called one of my coworkers at my other job at UT-Tyler to find out if we would be open; she said we would and asked me to bring a radio; although it was the university’s computer lab, no one could find a site with updated info. That radio I brought to work that afternoon had students, professors, and staff clustered around it until I left late that afternoon.

My Muslim coworker and several of my undergrad finance classmates were of Middle Eastern descent, some here as international students, others first or second generation Americans whose parents sought a better way of life and the American Dream. I watched in the following weeks and months as they were disrespected and ridiculed for actions they had no part in. Just because some fellow Saudis back in the Middle East and Southeast Asia happened to have an extreme view of Islam doesn’t mean they all did. And I mourned like every other person who — American or not — was impacted by those hijacked airplanes who forever changed our lives. I was already patriotic as the daughter of a war veteran; to this day, I cannot hear a patriotic song without tears flowing and thanking my lucky stars and the Lord above for living here, having my freedoms, and a military that protects them.

Ten years later, we may feel the impacts and changes created by the events of September 11, 2001 less than we did initially — unless one travels frequently — but I know I don’t take life for granted any longer. Our laws may make some feel stifled by the changes that were put into place to protect us, but I’d rather that than the alternative.

So, today, remember those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001 — then hug your families or, if they’re not physically nearby, call them up and tell them how much you care and are grateful they’re in your lives.

by girl

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